The present invention relates to a video recording apparatus, like a camera-equipped VCR and the corresponding method, and an edit-data forming apparatus, an edit-data forming method and an edit-data forming program for forming edit data to be used in edition of videos recorded by a video recording apparatus.
In most known techniques of recording and editing video signals, video signals are recorded on a video tape (as a storage medium) and then edited on another video tape. Edition on tape, however, takes long time and is not efficient in edition operation. Thus, a major edition technique used at present is so-called nonlinear edition in which a video signal is recorded on a hard disk and edited thereon. Nonlinear edition is performed on a personal computer or other similar edition apparatus. It requires a very short time for indexing and dubbing because a plurality of data are joint to one another on a hard disk, thus very efficient in edition operation.
Most video recording apparatus, like camera-equipped VCRs, still use video tapes as a storage medium. This is because, randomly accessible storage media, such as, hard disks and optical disks, have smaller storage capacity than video tapes and cannot offer high-quality long-time recording. Thus, even for nonlinear edition on hard disk, video signals must be once recorded on a video tape and then edited on a hard disk in camera-equipped VCRs, etc.
Japanese Patent No. 2983642 discloses quick and easy edition of video signals recorded by a camera-equipped VCR.
Nonlinear edition on hard disk for video signals recorded on a video tape, however, requires a signal-recording time to a hard disk, the same as the time for reproducing the video signals that have been recorded on a video tape. For example, it requires 60 minutes to record video signals on a hard disk, which have been recorded on a video tape for 60 minutes.
Moreover, conventional nonlinear edition on hard disk requires that all video signals be recorded on a hard disk, even though what is actually required to be edited is just a part of 60-min video signals, etc., recorded on a video tape, thus taking long time for recording video signals recorded on a video tape, on a hard disk.